The Ship Model Forum

A build of the HMS Lively kit that I reviewed for the Model Warships main site back in October of 2019 (which seems much longer ago than it should considering the past couple of months in quarantine). I'm working on this on conjunction with the USS Chickasaw build, as Chickasaw is fighting me every step of the way, but I suppose that's to be expected of a scratch-build that was started well before I knew what I was doing.

Not long after completing the review, I picked up the Flyhawk pre-cut desk mask set for the kit. I immediately picked out the kit parts that used the masks, and mounted them for prime and paint. And there they sat for months, until I pulled them off the Shelf of Doom last week. I'm ramping up to start a build of USS Yorktown (CV-5) in 1/700, and since I've only built one 1/700 scale kit in the past 30 years, my USS Luzon, I want to practice some things first.

As stated in the review, the kit is beautiful and precise. It's not Bandai snap-together fit, but it's not far from it. Some of the pieces are tiny; too much so for my enjoyment. The main armament guns come with barrels in styrene, all one piece, and very delicate. But, if you want, there are also brass turned barrel replacements. I thought of shaving off the existing barrels, drilling locator holes, and applying the brass, but I have a zero-percent chance of getting them all lining up parallel and looking as clean as the styrene, so I'll skip those. Also, doing all of that just is no where near fun for me.

This build has already taught me a bit for future reference.

1.The instructions call out for Tamiya paint mixes, which likely match full-scale colors, and as such, the hull especially is WAY too dark. I'll be able to pull it back with glazes and weathering, but in the future I'll remember to lighten for scale effect out of the bottle.

2. Also, I'm realizing that in this scale a lot of fine detail painting has to be done by brush; it's simply insane to try to mask and spray absolutely everything. So, when making custom paint mixes, don't thin all of it for airbrushing; set some aside, unthinned, for brush touch up.

3. I wish I had built her full hull, instead of using the waterline plate, even though I'm going to put her in a water setting. There's more leeway on where to set your waterline if you have the whole hull to work with.

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We like our history sanitized and theme-parked and self-congratulatory, not bloody and angry and unflattering. - Jonathan Yardley

Crisp looking build. Love those masks. They really look like a time saver.

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Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

Ship Model Gallery

They're amazing. Too much so, actually. I don't know that I want to attempt another 1/700 build without them!

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We like our history sanitized and theme-parked and self-congratulatory, not bloody and angry and unflattering. - Jonathan Yardley

I spent most of yesterday's work, and a bit this morning, finishing the forward bridge assembly. Lots of paint touch-up, using the Lifecolor paint, which of course is a slightly different shade than the Tamiya mix I made for airbrushing. I'm now going back over everything with light mists and drybrushing of the Lifecolor to blend it all, resulting in a quite nice weathered effect.

Yesterday, I dropped one of the bridge wings, and literally cleaned the entire work area looking for it, pulling out cabinets and everything. When I finally gave up hope and put everything back, I spotted the part laying on the caster of my work chair. At least I found it, it's not something I'd have been able to easily scratch an acceptable replacement.

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We like our history sanitized and theme-parked and self-congratulatory, not bloody and angry and unflattering. - Jonathan Yardley

Looks great.

Status at start of day 3 of the build: Almost all of the major sub-assemblies are done. They're dry fit in the photos below, waiting for final assembly. I'm at the point now where I need to work on the part I hate the most about destroyers: depth charges and their handling equipment.

Hit the first real snag in assembling the kit's mast. It's just way too thin and spindly. There's no way it'd stand up to any sort of handling, and no way to rig it. Fortunately I have some Master Barrels' brass masts and yardarms, so I'll make something using those.

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We like our history sanitized and theme-parked and self-congratulatory, not bloody and angry and unflattering. - Jonathan Yardley

Very crisp detail on that kit, for sure.

She looks good.

that's a very nice kit, looking very nice so far.

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Under construction: KMS Bismarck 1/350

Thanks, guys.

Slow day today, mostly focused on how to make the mast. I ended up getting an okay solder join, after a lot of post-soldering filing. At work I can solder micro LEDs all day long and have no problems, but lining up, holding, then soldering these small components where alignment is key still mostly eludes me.

A couple of other small parts, including the aft searchlight station (I know nothing of British warships, so no idea if that's what it's called), and one of the ship's boats. According to the instructions, the boats should be overall the same color as the superstructure, but since the upper works are separate pieces, I painted them a bit lighter to give a bit of visual interest; the wooden flooring also helps to pump up the detail.

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We like our history sanitized and theme-parked and self-congratulatory, not bloody and angry and unflattering. - Jonathan Yardley

Progress since last post: mainmast installed. It's missing some cross-supports on the lower portion, but I'd had enough of dealing with the thing by the time I got it installed, so it doesn't have them. Also I had to scratch the crow's nest, after the kit supplied one sailed off into the ether while attempting to trim down some flash. It's not perfect, but it works for me.

I've installed railings on the forward superstructure and permanently affixed that structure and the other major fixtures, including the torpedo tubes. A couple of ladders have gone on, using the old GMM set for Cruisers and Destroyers in 1/700. I'm not going nuts with the PE, but she'd look too plain without anything added.

I've reached the dreaded part of the build: adding K-Guns, depth charges, and handling cranes. I do two complete stations, or 3 pieces each, in a sitting, then force myself to walk away and do something else. The pieces look a bit bulky, but that's the nature of injected styrene in this scale, and honestly they look pretty good once cleaned up.

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We like our history sanitized and theme-parked and self-congratulatory, not bloody and angry and unflattering. - Jonathan Yardley

Construction continues. All of the styrene has been attached, except for boat booms, which will go on after the railings.

Speaking of the railings: They're fighting me every damn step of the way. I guess the Mr. Color metal etch primer I have has gone bad, as after spraying the Gold Medal Models steel fret, everything stayed tacky. So to install everything, I have to cut it from the fret, then strip it in lacquer thinner. I have some automotive primer laying around, so I primed it with that, but it doesn't stick at all, either. Lots of touch-up after the railings are finally affixed. The straight runs aren't that bad, but the curvature at the bow is a real headache. I've gotten them attached, but there's glue build up and lots of brush touch-ups.

I'm really glad I chose to experiment with this 1/700 scale kit. I was going to next tackle the USS Yorktown CV-5, dry dock 1 diorama in this scale. After this experiment, I may never build another 1/700 scale kit again. Well, that's not true, but I'll definitely be doing the Yorktown diorama in 1/350th.

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We like our history sanitized and theme-parked and self-congratulatory, not bloody and angry and unflattering. - Jonathan Yardley

Looks really good, D.

What doesn't kill us...



I think she looks great. Go for the Yorky dio in 1/700.

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Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

Ship Model Gallery

I returned to work two weeks ago yesterday, working 4 day weeks at 9-10 hours a day. Regardless to say, modeling time has dropped significantly. Still, I've made more progress on Lively. All of the PE railings are now attached using liberal amounts of Gator Glue and swearing to get them affixed.

I wasn't happy at all with the life raft mounts included in the kit. A couple of them were short-shot, and all of them overly thick. I was going to simply omit them from the build, but I ended up wanting them after all, to add some clutter, and color with their wooden bottoms. The PE spares bin came to the rescue with some old 1/350th scale ladder stock from my Yankee Model Works/Blue Water Navy, USS Farenholt and USS Laffey leftovers. I've used the leftover PE from those kits on so many ship and sci-fi builds that I can't even keep track anymore. Anyway, the brass doesn't look exactly like the plastic structure they're replacing, but they're covered by the rafts. I think it works.

I still need to add the anchors, boat booms, and figures. Also need to gloss coat for decals, washes, and weathering.

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We like our history sanitized and theme-parked and self-congratulatory, not bloody and angry and unflattering. - Jonathan Yardley

Well, the life rafts themselves are like eye candy, so I don't really notice an issue with the mounts.

Still very nice and crisp, to my eye.

Superb build, Sir! Way above my feeble efforts in both assembly and painting.
One does get used to Flyhawk standard rather quickly, though, and that spoils me for some other manufacturers efforts. So the wait is on for that Ajax, Sydney, Scheer, Illustrious and Da Mosto.
Richard

Lively continues. Since the last posting, I've finished with decals, the initial enamel wash to bring out some major details, including the portholes, and sealed all of that under a dull coat.

In the area of "where the hell did that part just shoot off to?" I have had to replace a few components. There was this weird diamond shaped thingy for the aft deck house that I sat aside when I didn't know what it was, and it's just lost. Looking at the box artwork, it appears to be some sort of radio/radar antenna mini-array, so I found something that looks close-ish on an old PE fret, mounted it on an acupuncture needle, and mounted it. Looks close enough, and way closer than the original kit part, so I'll call that a win.

Second, while trimming one of the anchors to fit, it sailed off into the ether. I was going to simply have one anchor on the ship, but then I realized that the kit provides no anchor chain, and none is molded onto the deck. A quick order off to Freetime, and three days later I had the Flyhawk British anchor chain and anchor photo etch set in-hand. The chain looks the part, and the anchors look so good once folded, assembled and painted, that I pulled off the kit part that I'd already attached, and used the PE on both sides.

I've also started working on figures. I have the 3D Model Parts and Northstar sets. The Northstar set is problematic, in that the figures are molded/printed so closely together that it's difficult to get them off of the casting block. The resin is also brittle, so cutting them with scissors, a scalpel, sprue cutters, or anything at all, really, causes them to either shatter or fly off to all points of the compass. The 3D Model Parts figures are more workable, with ample space between them to cut them free, and a bit of flex to the prints, so less loss in removing them from the print supports. Once the oil washes are done, I'll be adding a dozen or so to the ship to give her a little life and sense of scale.

I'm undertaking oil paint glazes for the first time on a ship model. It's a technique that armor modelers use quite often, and some ship modelers as well (using Marijin Van Gils' book on Lexington as one of my references). I only just started this today, so the oils haven't fully dried yet to let me know how it's going, but I'm cautiously optimistic; it's leading to subtle shading that I was never able to attain with only washes and dry brushing.

_________________
We like our history sanitized and theme-parked and self-congratulatory, not bloody and angry and unflattering. - Jonathan Yardley

Great work Devin!

That looks great! Really detailed kit.

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Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

Ship Model Gallery

Well I’ve started this same kit my first ship model. Yours is light years a head of mine as I struggle with some of the finer detail. On the bridge their are two what I believe to be binocular mounts which won the challenge and disintegrated when I tried to cut them from the sprue. It looks like I’ve made the mistake of sticking most of the parts together which will be a pain to paint. I’ll put it down to a learning curve and if it turns out not too bad might get the courage to post a pic.
Looking forward to seeing your model completed.